May He Rest In Peace
by evgrrl09
Summary: In death, Hotch is reunited with the love of his life. My entry for CCOAC's Dearly Departed Death Fiction Challenge.


**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

**Here's my entry for the Dearly Departed Death Fiction Challenge at the CCOAC! My assignment was Aaron Hotchner and I must admit that I breathed a sigh of relief it wasn't Morgan or Garcia because while I can put them in situations of extreme peril, I don't think I'd ever have the heart to kill them. Frankly though, killing the beloved bossman is going to rip at my heart a little. Hopefully this will go okay and I hate to say it but my goal is to make you cry…I feel like that will be a way to tell if I'm doing my job properly. PLEASE REVIEW :D**

Emily Prentiss disembarked from her flight into the international terminal at JFK to find a grim faced David Rossi waiting for her. It had been a few years since Emily had gone to London and a few months she'd seen her former team and now the occasion was grim for their reunion. A grim smile lit up his face and to fight tears she ran into his open arms and hugged him fiercely.

"Emily Prentiss," he said simply against her neck.

"Hey Rossi," she said hoarsely.

When she pulled away, he cupped her cheek and smiled. "Let's get you going to the hotel," he said tiredly. "You must want to rest. I'm sure the flight has made you exhausted."

She bit her lip and shook her head. Halting Rossi, she put her hand on his arm and said, "Dave, I need to know what happened to him." With tears in her eyes, she looked at him as if trying to show him exactly how big the wound in her chest was from the news that had been delivered to her over the phone. "Please. You have to tell me," she begged.

Rossi studied her for a long moment. Time and now sorrow had etched away at her features and he could very clearly tell she was suffering.

She deserved to know.

Nodding reluctantly, he agreed, "Alright then. Let's go find a place where we can get some coffee and we can have a chat. If you're not tired, then we can go over this."

XXXXX

_Hotch hurried frantically towards the waiting SUV to get on the move to the hostage site. Blood and adrenaline were racing through his veins and his mind was working extra hard as well. This case had grown personal. The unsub had targeted members of their team now. JJ and Penelope, along with Henry and Penelope's daughter, Norah were taken along with a coffee shop full of people by him. And if he had anything to say about it, he would have the unsub in a noose and swinging from a rope before he let him harm anyone he knew and loved._

_As he was buckling his seatbelt, the passenger side door swung open and slammed shut. Hotch turned to look at who had joined him and groaned. "Morgan, I told you I forbid you from coming! You're too personally involved in this case to be helping negotiate!"_

_Morgan boomed at him, "Dammit Hotch! That's my wife and daughter he's got in there! I'm not stopping until the two of them are safe and out of there!"_

_The look in Derek Morgan's eyes as he glared at Hotch was one of unstoppable fury. He would get to the hostage sight one way or another, whether he was locked up or set loose. There was nothing that could stop him from getting there._

_It was the exact same as when Haley had been taken by Foyet._

_Nodding once shortly, he said, "Fine."_

XXXXX

"_The phone's still ringing," Rossi grumbled to Hotch._

_Shaking his head, Hotch squinted past the sunlight to see into the large open windows. The unsub – Elmer Jackson, a man mentally unstable and off his medication for schizophrenia whose mother's death had caused him to spiral – was holding his gun to JJ's head while Penelope was clutching both the children's heads to her chest to keep them from seeing the sight before them. He watched the unsub's glance flick nervously to the ringing phone and as he dragged the very frightened JJ towards it._

"_Hello?" Rossi said. No one else could hear what the unsub was saying, but Rossi's indifferent tone was giving them all they needed to know. "You want the voices gone? We may be able to help you with that Elmer. We can work something out if you let the hostages go." He paused. Through the window Hotch saw him shaking JJ's head more as he started yelling with blood shot eyes. He was devolving rapidly before their eyes and if they didn't do something soon, JJ was going to end up on the list of deceased._

_Morgan was already looking like a rabid dog, ready to jump into the action at any moment to save all of them._

"_Elmer, they didn't kill your mother," Rossi tried reasoning. "Penelope and JJ are innocent. The voices are lying. Let us help you. We can give you the help you need."_

_From the expression on Elmer's face, it was clear something was about to go wrong._

_He slammed the phone down and Rossi shook his head before turning to Hotch. "He wants to see you, Aaron," he said. "He says if he gets to talk to you in person, he'll let everyone go in the coffee shop."_

_Hotch nodded and holstered his gun without a second thought. "I'll go in then," he said simply. There was no need to think about it. He would do anything for his family and that was just what he was going to do._

"_You be careful," Rossi said, putting a hand on Hotch's shoulder._

_Nodding to them all, Hotch put his hands up in the air and started for the coffee shop to free the hostages._

XXXXX

"_Stop right there!" Elmer shrieked as Hotch entered the building with his hands up in the air. "That's close enough!" He still had JJ in a death grip with his gun against her head and was looking more and more ill by the second. His skin was deathly pale, his eyes were red and sickly, and he was shaking viciously. "Step any closer and I blow Agent Jareau's brains all over this shop!"_

_Hotch nodded steadily. "I understand Elmer," he said calmly. He stood tall before the enraged man and unyielding. "Elmer, I know you're upset about your mother, I know she was very special to you."_

_Elmer's voice raised an octave as he jerked JJ's neck a little more rough than Hotch would've liked. Penelope had tears rolling down her cheeks and she was begging Hotch with her gaze to save JJ. And Hotch had every intention of doing so. "She was the only one who loved me and took care of me! She kept the voices out of my head and stopped them from making me do things like this! And now the voices are telling me that Agents Jareau and Garcia are to blame! And I can't stop until I kill them!"_

"_Yes, you can stop," Hotch said. "I can help you. I swear to you."_

_This time when Elmer jerked JJ, he threw her away from his body roughly and tossed her into Penelope and the children so they all crashed to the ground. "No one can help me!" he screeched. "I'm doomed. No one can really help me. Don't you see that?" But before Hotch could say anything in response, he grasped both sides of his head. "No!" he bemoaned. "Please, don't make me do that too!"_

"_What are they telling you to do, Elmer?" Hotch asked. "What are the voices telling you?"_

_Brutally, the unsub shoved JJ away from him until she collided with the children and Penelope. "Agent Hotchner, it ends now for you," he hollered, raising his gun to shoot._

_With his bullet proof vest, Hotch thought he might be safe._

_He didn't anticipate Elmer's bullet would travel into the base of his throat._

XXXXX

_Hotch blinked several times before opening his eyes fully. It was difficult to see anything properly because he found himself on an ethereal white plane. There was no one around and all he could think was this was something only seen in movies when the hero was about to die._

_Did that mean he was dead then?_

"_Hello Aaron."_

_Whirling around, Hotch saw the origin of the voice and had to choke past a lump in his throat. She looked just as beautiful as he remembered her._

"_Haley?" he gasped, almost in disbelief. She smiled at him and nodded. "Haley, what are you doing here? Am – am I dead?"_

_She looked at him sadly and nodded once again, this time stepping closer and putting both hands on his cheeks. "I'm sorry Aaron," she murmured softly. "You didn't make it out this time."_

_The news set in like a weight of a million bricks on his chest. He, Aaron Hotchner, was well and truly deceased. No more waking up or going to sleep, no more sunny days or moon lit evenings, no more time spent with Jack. Everything was over for him, whether he liked it or not._

_Taking a deep breath, he asked, "What happens now, Haley? What do I do?"_

"_What do you want to do?" she asked simply, tilting her head to the side. His shrug caused her to smile. "It's so unlike you Aaron not to have a plan. But the ropes of this are hard to handle. When I died, my mother was here to show me how to deal with this. So now I'm here for you. And what she told me was, we have all the time in the world. Now I'm telling you the same thing." Smiling again, she added, "So I'm asking you again…what do you want to do?"_

_He reached up to his face to take her hands in his. Kissing both of them, he looked into her eyes. How he'd missed them, the depths of her deep, beautiful eyes. He was well and truly dead, not coming back. If he was able to spend the rest of time with this woman in front of him, the woman he loved, he supposed he would be fine._

"_What about Jack?" he asked sadly, his thoughts drifting to their son. "Is he going to be okay?"_

_Haley kissed his lips ever so gently. "He'll be okay…we'll see him again," she murmured. "He'll grow up loved, people will take care of him."_

_Wrapping his arms around Haley, he kissed her back and said, "I'll miss him."_

"_You'll think of him every day and he'll think of you too," she assured him, taking his hand. As she took it, she squeezed his hand and added, "I love you, Aaron. That never changed."_

_He nodded. "I love you too, Haley," he whispered._

XXXXX

Tears were rolling down Emily's cheeks as Rossi finished telling her how Hotch had been killed. He waited patiently until her tears ceased. "I wish I could've seen him one last time," she murmured, using a napkin to wipe her tears.

Rossi nodded and patted her hand. "I know _bella_," he said softly.

"I hope he finds Haley," she whispered, glancing out the window. "I hope he finds peace."


End file.
